A Reminder of the Hatred and Intolerance Around the World — the self portraits of men living in countries where homosexuality is against the law.
I'd only add that Conservative members of our current Supreme Court have voted in ways that would have placed my lover and I in this group. The Lawrence v. Texas decision that outlawed so called "sodomy laws" ended the direct criminalizing of our love for each other.

Every day, same-sex couples must fight for the basic rights that
straight
married couples take for granted. One of those basic rights is the
right
to visit your partner in the hospital. Michael and I are fortunate to
live
in Broward County, a progressive county in the mostly conservative state
of
Florida. Broward has a Domestic Partners ordinance which, among other
things, guarantees the right of domestic partners to visit their loved
ones in
the hospital.During the last year, Michael and I had to be
hospitalized
in separate occasions: Michael in the Cleveland Clinic in March and I in
Broward
General in June. (Happily, neither hospital visit lasted for more than a

day or so.) In either case, our partner was allowed unlimited access
into
the hospital’s emergency room to be with our loved one.

Unfortunately, other couples were not so fortunate. During the
height of
the AIDS epidemic, too many men were forcibly kept away
from
their dying lovers by hospitals and hospices who did not recognize their

relationships. Just last year, partners Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond
experienced homophobia first hand when Pond suffered an aneurysm during a

Florida vacation. When Pond was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital in
Miami, Langbehn and her children were denied access to Pond because (in
the
hospital’s opinion) she wasn’t a “real” family member. As a result,
Pond
died alone, in spite of the fact that she and Langbehn had living wills,

advanced directives and power-of-attorney documents. This didn’t
matter,
according to a heartless hospital worker, who allegedly told Langbehn
that she
was in an “antigay city and state.” (This might be true of the State of

Florida, but not of the City of Miami.) Langbehn, not surprisingly,
sued
the hospital.

Obviously an incident like this one does nothing for Jackson’s
reputation,
especially when one considers the hospital’s current financial
problems. To their credit, officials from the Jackson Health System (JHS) dealt
with the
resulting brouhaha by meeting with a coalition of local LGBT
organizations,
including SAVE Dade (Safeguarding American Values for Everyone), to
solve this
pressing (and embarrassing) issue. The end result of these
negotiations,
announced on April 12, was a change of policy for JHS that gave the
same-sex
partners of lesbian, bisexual and gay patients the same visiting rights
as
heterosexual spouses. Jackson redefined its definition of “family” to
include people who are not legally related to the patient, including
“spouses,
domestic partners and both different-sex and same-sex significant
others.”
Meanwhile, “while this is a positive step for the LGBT community in
South
Florida, the work to implement fair visitation policies throughout the
rest of
South Florida and across the state is far from over,” announced SAVE
Dade.

Coincidentally, on April 15th President Barack Obama, who’s having
his own
problems with his LGBT constituents, issued a memorandum that calls for
an end
to discriminatory policies that limit hospital visitation to legal
spouses and
immediate family members. The president directed Health and Human
Services
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to “ensure” that hospitals that participate
in
Medicare and Medicaid (that is, most hospitals) “respect the rights of
patients
to designate visitors” and allow those visitors the same privileges that
married
spouses and legitimate children take for granted. The memo makes no
mention of assisted living facilities.) Obama then called Janice
Langbehn,
to express his sympathy and apologize for the injustice done to her and
her dead
partner. “I hope that taking these steps makes sure that no family every
has to
experience the nightmare that my family has gone though,” she replied.

Unfortunately, the fight is far from over. Two years ago Clay
Greene
and Harold Scull (at the left), an elderly couple living in “liberal” Sonoma County,
California, were forcibly separated when Scull fell and became
incapacitated.Though the couple had provided for such an emergency,
the
County refused to recognize their relationship. It got a judge to
declare
Greene – who had allegedly acted violently against Scull – mentally
incompetent,
placed both men in separate facilities, gained the power of
conservatorship from
a sympathetic judge, and then proceeded to take over, sell or keep the
couple’s
belongings. Through it all, Greene was not allowed to visit Scull, who
died in August 2008. Needless to say, Greene is now suing the
County.

Cases like this remind us that we must keep vigilant and
ever-active in our
struggle for the rights of same-sex couples. Horror stories like these
will not cease until and unless lesbian and gay couples achieve the same
rights
that straight married couples now have, whether in Florida, California,
or
across these United States.

Earlier this week I had an opportunity to catch an advance screening of the new Ang Lee film Taking Woodstock.

The movie has a great script that sparkle with the gifts of one of the best casts I've ever seen. Everyone is believable and wonderful in their roles. Demetri Martin, someone I knew only for his comedic work, is sweet and endearing as Elliot Tiber, the man who put the festival planners and Max Yasgur (played by the wonderful Eugene Levy) together. His story (told in his memoir Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life) is about the motel-owning parents he's trying to help (the brilliant Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman). But the story is also about Tiber's coming to terms with his sexuality and trying to figure out what to do with his life. The acting is all top shelf and some of the roles are worthy of Oscar consideration starting with Staunton role as the overbearing mother who manages to offer both the funniest and painful moments in the film.

I left the movie thinking that Ang Lee may be the most Gay-friendly director working today. Throughout his long career he's turned in some of the most thoughtful representations of Gay life — from the couple in his early Wedding Banquet to the now classic Brokeback Mountain. In telling the story of an iconic festival that took place months after the Stonewall rebellion, Lee doesn't skimp on the connection. In many ways the Stonewall rebellion, which occurred a few months before Woodstock, is represented by Liev Schreiber's oscar-worthy performance as Vilma. She arrives as an angel of sorts who helps Elliot loosen up and live his life. These performances are the shiniest in a field of diamonds.

I just saw the movie a few hours ago but I highly recommend this film to our readers. It was a delight — the music is good too if only secondary to the story of love and community that comes shining through. – Dan

(FOR THE RECORD: The screening I attended was sponsored by The Nation magazine. These are my opinions only. Take it as a friendly suggestion!)

Hi Friends!Below are excerpts from our Winter 2008/09 issue on Sanctuary. Please understand that we rely on the support of subscribers to keep going.So,subscribe todayand keep the conversation going! Consider giving a gift subscriptionto your friends who could use some wisdom!

"Memory As Magic Faerie Camp Destiny" By Bambi Gauthier"Holding Sanctuary Easton Mountain" By John Stasio"Sanctuary as Refuge Portland" By Enrique E. Andrade"Zuni Sanctuary A Journal from the High Mountain Desert" By Joe Birdsong"Short Mountain Sanctuary: A History" By Gabby Haze"Place Where Our Hearts Take Hope" By Stafford Whiteaker"Loneliness & the Sanctuary of the Spirit" By Jay Michaelson

Subscribe todayand keep the conversation going! Consider giving a gift subscriptionto
your friends who could use some wisdom! If there's an article listed
above that was not excerpted online, copies of this issue are available
for purchase. Contact us at editors@gaywisdom.org

"Oh my God. This was, um. This was not an easy film to make. First off, I have to thank Cleve Jones and Anne Kronenberg and all the real-life people who shared their stories with me. And, um, Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, James Franco, and our entire cast, my producers, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, everyone at Groundswell and Focus, for taking on the challenge of telling this life-saving story. When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life, it gave me the hope to one day live my life openly as who I am and that maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married.

I want to thank my mom who has always loved me for who I am, even when there was pressure not to. But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he'd want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches or by the government or by their families that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours. (Wild applause from the audience.) Thank you, thank you, and thank you God for giving us Harvey Milk." – Dustin Lance Black

The following are the scheduled topics for future issues of White Crane. In an effort to remain as topical as a quarterly publication can be, the order of this schedule may be changed so that we may be responsive to the "zeitgeist."

Spring 2009Music & PoetryWe honor the place of music in our lives. We shed light on pioneers in the creation of Gay music. We revel in the works of visionary Gay troubadors.We also will announce the winner of the 2009 White Crane/James White Poetry Prize

Deadline for Spring 2009: February 1, 2009

Summer 2009Celebrating Our 20th Anniversary & the 30th Anniversary of the 1st Radical Faerie GatheringExploring what survivors experienced then and what we've experienced since, where we are now and what we're doing to get where we want to be in the future, individually and collectively. A call for stories, photos, poems and other sharings from 1979 survivors, and from younger faeries influenced by that seminal event and their own, more recent, experiences and dreams. Deadline: May 1, 2009

Fall 2009FreethoughtWe honor the lives of those who follow a humanist, agnostic or atheist path in life. What is the place of reason in life and how does one construct a life without the need for certainty about or belief in a God.

Deadline for Fall 2009: August 1, 2009

Winter 2009:FathersWe invite an exploration of our relationship with fathers. How are we fathered? How do we father? Conflict and resonance? The man who set a role we rebelled from or grew to resemble? Tell us your story of Father.

For all the talk of "liberal media" it’s interesting to note the half truths and flat out lies the media and commentariat let go by, unchallenged:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending … and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere." She also accepted the money and used it for other purposes.

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama’s plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain’s plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She’s been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America’s energy supply … She’s responsible for 20 percent of the nation’s energy supply. I’m entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News’ Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain’s phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she’s no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN:"She’s the commander of the Alaska National Guard. … She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska’s national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor’s election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY:"We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

___

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Gay Wisdom – Today in Gay History

Born

0053 -

TRAJAN, Roman emperor, born. The first non-Italian Roman emperor. His accomplishments were both martial and civic, including construction of the aqueducts, the restoration of the Appian Way and the building of the massive Forum of Trajan. According to Spartianus, he was a proud possessor of a paedogogium, a road-show harem of boys he took along with him on campaign, apparently for his and his officers’ pleasure.

His sexuality was never in question, only the stories used to illustrate his preferences. The monumental erection, the Column of Trajan, was Rome’s highly appropriate tribute to this, emperor, considered to have been one of the “good emperors.”

1947 -

American author, poet and activist, PERRY BRASS was born today Brass grew up in Savannah, Georgia grew up in the 1950s and 60s in equal parts Southern, Jewish, economically impoverished, and very much gay. To escape the South’s violent homophobia, he hitchhiked at age 17 from Savannah to San Francisco — an adventure, he recalls, that was “like Mark Twain with drag queens.” He has published fourteen books and been a finalist six times in three categories (poetry; gay science fiction and fantasy; spirituality and religion) for national Lambda Literary Awards.

One of the main themes in his writing has been the integration of sexuality and the religious or spiritual impulse, as exemplified in his novels Albert: or, The Book of Man, Angel Lust, and Substance of God. His writings have attempted to answer questions such as: Why are so many gay men religious and political conservatives? Why is the need for God so important to us? What is our own place in nature and the world?

Among the early anthologies that included Brass's work were The Male Muse, the first anthology of openly gay poetry ever published, edited by Ian Young; The Gay Liberation Book from Rolling Stone Press, including work by John Lennon; The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse; and Gay Roots from Gay Sunshine Press. His work can be found in over 20 anthologies of poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs, and other writings. A poetry cycle called "Five Gay Jewish Prayers" was used as part of the high holiday service at New York's Beth Simchat Torah congregation. The text of this poem was accepted (in 1985) as one of the first gay Jewish documents in the YIVO Archives of Jewish history. This poem was set to choral music by Chris De Blasio, as "Five Prayers," which has been sung by several gay choruses.

In 1984, his play Night Chills, an early play dealing with the AIDS crisis, won a Jane Chambers International Gay Playwriting Award. Brass’s collaborations with composers include the words for "All the Way Through Evening," a five-song cycle set by DeBlasio, which was featured on the AIDS Quilt Songbook CD from Harmonia Mundi, France, and Heartbeats from Minnesota Public Radio; "The Angel Voices of Men" set by Ricky Ian Gordon and commissioned by the Dick Cable Musical Trust for the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, which has featured it on its CD Gay Century Songbook; "Three Brass Songs" with Grammy-nominated composer Fred Hersch; and "Waltzes for Men" also commissioned by the DCMT for the NYC Gay Men’s Chorus and set by Craig Carnahan.

Brass's non-fiction book, How to Survive Your Own Gay Life (Belhue Press, 1999) deals with the psychic and physical survival of gay men, with their spiritual and psychological growth, and with achieving happiness and maturity. It was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in religion and spirituality, and has been the basis for many LGBT discussion and support groups, classes, and workshops.

Noteworthy

1996 -

The European Parliament calls for an end to "all discrimination against homosexuals."